Gov. Abbott cites exit polls showing former Californians are voting GOP in Texas

 Red States:

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Abbott said that the number one question he gets from Texans is about whether or not these Californians coming here for jobs will regress the state into something that looks more like the overpriced and overregulated state of  California.

“I have great news for them,” said Abbott. “These relocations are not going to change the politics in Texas, and we have mathematical proof for it.”

“Two years ago, I was on the same ballot that Ted Cruz and Beto O’Rourke were on the ballot,” said Abbott. “We did an exit poll asking people after they left the polls, did you vote for Ted Cruz or did you vote for Beto O’Rourke, and then we asked them ‘did you move California or are you a native-born Texan. The results of that poll showed that 58 percent of the people who moved from California voted for Ted Cruz.”

“Interestingly, that almost identically matches a separate poll that was taken — also an exit poll from the same election — that showed that 57 percent of the people who moved from California voted for Ted Cruz and both of those polls matched a study that was done a couple of years before that that asked Californians who came to Texas ‘are you conservative or are you liberal?’ Fifty-seven percent of the people who moved from California said they were conservative, 27 percent of the people who moved from California said they were liberal,” added Abbott.

Abbott said that the reason these numbers are what they are is that leftists who like the high taxes would stay in California while the low-tax atmosphere of Texas would be more attractive to conservatives. What’s more, CEOs have told Abbott that another reason they move to Texas is the lack of policing in the states they left.

Carlson highlighted the vast cultural difference between the states as well, highlighting that Texas leans into the Christian religion while California leans more into social programming. He asked Abbott if he was concerned that this kind of prioritizing of values would be a concern.

Abbott reiterated that he’s not worried because these Californians are conservatives who believe in God and, on top of that, guns, which they’re excited to get since they couldn’t get them in California.

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Other surveys have pointed out that most of the California transplants are conservative.  A lot of the money that O'Rourke used in his election came from California, but his big expenditures did not turn the election.  The 2020 election also saw a lot of outside money being spent on Democrat races but it did not change the results.